‘Fried rice syndrome’ death is freaking out TikTok: ‘Form of natural selection’
Some leftovers can be even more appetizing than freshly made — but they can also be extremely dangerous.
The case of a 20-year-old who died in 2008 after eating five-day-old pasta has recently resurfaced, going viral again as of late on YouTube, Reddit and TikTok.
“This has to be some form of natural selection,” wrote TikToker @Jpall20, in a video presenting the cautionary tale “for all the students and meal-preppers out there.”
The more than 2.8 million viewers of the clip, posted Monday on TikTok, appeared similarly appalled. “I wouldn’t even eat something a week old that had been refrigerated,” one wrote.
The initial report, published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, claimed that the student in Brussels, Belgium, would often prep a week’s worth of meals on Sunday, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it during the weekdays.
On one such Sunday, he chose to make spaghetti as his weekly meal, which he cooked and placed in food storage containers for easy reheating and eating.
But the young man missed one critical step of meal prep: temperature control.
Instead of placing his leftovers in the refrigerator, he left them sitting out on the counter at room temperature for five days.
Nevertheless, the novice cook survived his house-cured pasta for four days.
But on the fifth, according to the medical report, he had noted the flavor seemed different than his standard recipe.
Chalked it up to the new brand of pasta sauce he’d used, the hungry man continued to chow.
Later that day he attempted to engage in a workout but ended up returning home after a mere 30 minutes due to nausea, abdominal pain, headache and eventually experienced diarrhea and vomiting.
He drank water and attempted to sleep off the pain.
The next morning, when his parents went to check on him because he didn’t get out of bed for school, the man was found dead.
Investigators determined that the man’s time of death was around 4 a.m. — about 10 hours after consumption of the poisonous pasta.
The autopsy, performed five days later, revealed that he had moderate centrilobular liver necrosis, leading to organ shutdown.
However, the case report said that the exact cause of death “could not be determined by the autopsy because the interpretation of findings was very difficult due to the autopsy delay.”
Samples of the sauce and leftover pasta that he’d eaten were sent to the National Reference Laboratory for Food-borne Outbreaks for evaluation, where lab technicians discovered large amounts of a bacteria called Bacillus cereus.
This bacteria releases harmful toxins and can cause food poisoning or more serious health issues, according to Cleveland Clinic.
In extreme cases, it can lead to failure of the liver, and it produces a toxin in starchy foods that is heat resistant and won’t necessarily die in cooked or heated foods.
It’s best known for causing a specific type of food poisoning called Fried Rice Syndrome (FRS), first named for its early association with the Asian dish, according to the Republic of the Philippines National Nutrition Council.
It’s important to ensure that food is not left out at room temperature for long periods of time to prevent illness and infection from the bacteria.
Per the US Department of Agriculture, perishable foods should be stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below to prevent the proliferation of harmful bacteria.
